Transporter bridge a terrific installation

I don’t pretend to know everything about the pros and cons of the different routes proposed for the work on the M4, but I feel your recent correspondent (“Pondering relief road? Look to disused bridge”, WM letters, April 19) was harsh in his rather uncalled-for ridiculing of the Newport Transporter Bridge.

It was built to make it easier for people who lived on one side of the river to go to work on the other side. It is unfair to criticise the people at the time it opened (1906) for not knowing that road transport would become so important.

The bridge was also the most economical way of solving the problem, as tunnelling was more expensive and a conventional bridge too impractical due to the height needed to allow ships to pass underneath. Rather than being a “white elephant”, it was the best and cheapest solution to the problem at the time it was conceived.

When I visited Bilbao recently in the Basque country of Spain I took a trip on the transporter bridge which crosses the river Nervion. It was beautiful and awe-inspiring, just as is the Newport bridge.

Near the bridge in Bilbao they have an information board which lists all the transporter bridges in the world, with a potted history of each one of them. And I, for one, was very proud to see the name of the Newport Transporter Bridge listed there as an example of such magnificent engineering.

Lyn Jones

Cardiff

Rebuild Notre Dame to serve everyone

I was interested to learn that, despite its monopolisation by Roman Catholics, Notre Dame is owned not by the Vatican but by the French government.

With French President Emmanuel Macron having already signalled that he is open to new ideas for rebuilding the cathedral, perhaps it is time to consider reconstructing it as a multi-faith centre for use by all.

For example, the incorporation of a minaret in place of the destroyed spire would be of use to Muslims, while the provision of a café or restaurant would be in the spirit of Laïcité, the secularism on which the French state is founded, and would appeal to persons of all faiths and none, especially if dietary regimes like kosher, halal and veganism were to be catered for.

John Eoin Douglas

Edinburgh

Let’s face down the EU, we will survive

So we have been given until October 31 to complete Brexit. How farcical that is!

This is the golden opportunity for the Remainers to continue the filibluster, until they, with the help of all the MPs who have abrogated responsibility to the electorate that voted democratically to leave the European Union, to run that vote into the ground. We will now have all the pathetic shouting for a second vote, even though we already have a mandate by a fair majority.

It looks as if we will have to pay millions of pounds to take part in elections we want no part of unless we get on with it now.

The EU have told us in coded words that they will make us leave with a hard Brexit. This is because they want us to be a message for other members who are thinking the same thing. The answer is to face them down, we will survive. Get out now. Talking to Jeremy will achieve nothing, not only what Jeremy wants, which is an election and that will definitely spike Brexit. That would reduce our democracy to nil. Because no government could ever be trusted again.

Welcome to totalitarianism.

Mike Hurn

Llandevaud, Newport

Magical Welsh is so perfectly descriptive

I DO so hope that BBC1’s Earth From Space cameras zoom in on our fabulous bluebell woods. I have just returned from a stroll through my local woods – and the bluebells are flirting with full bloom.

The joy of living among rolling countryside is that on north-facing woods the bluebells come into bloom a few weeks later, thus extending the delight. Incidentally, the Welsh for bluebells is “clychau’r gog” – the bells that announce the arrival of the cuckoo. How perfect is that? Indeed, a listener to Mal Pope on Friday morning reported hearing the first cuckoo of the season on Thursday.

The expression “clychau’r cog” merely confirms that the Welsh language precedes English (and Shakespeare in its common or garden eloquence) because so many words and articulations to describe nature are so exquisitely perfect.

One of my favourites is the jay: “sgcrech y coed” – the shriek in the woods. What do Western Mail contributors rate as their favourite Welsh words for those magical things found in nature?

Huw Beynon

Llandeilo

The true meaning of Easter applies to all

It is unfortunate that the Australian rugby star has singled out a particular class of people for condemnation.

The biblical position is that because of the Fall all have sinned and are on the broad road that leads to destruction.

The only way to get off is through the narrow gate of repentance toward God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, for Christ died on account of our sins, was buried and rose again the third day. This is the true meaning of Easter and is universally applicable.

John Marchant

Cardiff

Hospital visiting is tough without a car

When different services were moved from the Royal Glamorgan Hospital to Prince Charles Hospital in Merthyr Tydfil, did anyone give a thought to the public who lived out of the area?

How would they get to this hospital? Did they presume everyone has a car?

One of the powers that be should get on a bus from the top of the Rhondda and try to get to Prince Charles Hospital. Sunday is definitely no-go; to get to the Royal Glamorgan is difficult enough.

The transport situation in the Rhondda Fawr since certain bus services were altered and taken off is disgusting, yet the powers that be would like us out of our cars and on public transport.

C Williams

Trealaw, Rhondda

Welsh and Breton are very near neighbours

THE Western Mail feature about learning Welsh and the delegation from Brittany this week resonated with me.

Before and after World War II I can remember the “onion men” coming around every year. They would rent a warehouse in Cardiff Docks to store their onions, and I believe they slept there as well. Then every morning they would go out to the south Wales valleys.

I lived in Aberbargoed in the Rhymney Valley and I can picture them now – strings of onions around their necks and more strings covering their bikes. We were usually visited by the same Frenchman and my mother would have Welsh cakes and Teisen Lap ready because they always came at the same time of the year. I have always been amazed that my mother, speaking Welsh, and the Frenchman, speaking Breton, were able to converse.

To us, as kids, we thought we were “posh” because we’d had a “foreigner” in our house and other kids envied us.

I always regret I don’t speak Welsh and don’t know how to say “onion” in Welsh.

Mrs EH Prankerd

Blackwood, Gwent

Tighten up now on ‘man’s best friend’

The recent attacks by dogs on labs in Anglesey, to say nothing of the death of a child last week in England, shows clearly that more must be done to bring “man’s best friend” under control.

The reintroduction of the licence fee would certainly be a first step in the right direction.

The reason given for dropping this was that the seven shillings and sixpence (about 37p in today’s money) was not worth collecting. I would suggest £100 per annum; surely, no dog’s best friend would grudge such a sum! There could, of course, be exceptions, as in the case of working and guide dogs. An identity chip with a record of the animal’s DNA could also prove useful.

Furthermore, much stricter control of breeding kennels is required. It is cruel and immoral for bitches to be kept in an almost permanent state of pregnancy with the pups being sold off willy-nilly.

Revd G Carey Jones

Llangennech

Not all work pays in these modern times

More people are in work than at any time since records began. There is no mention that more people in work are claiming in-work benefits and using food banks. So not all work pays because the living wage is not enough and there are higher household bills and reduced working hours.